As you can tell from the size of this firmware review, there have been some huge additions over the previous firmware. Some of these were baked into the Android 4.0 ICS source code and others Sony has introduced itself. We have noticed some people talking of performance and battery issues, but this has not been experienced by us so far. As a point of clarity, our Xperia S was given a clean install to ICS. We also did not use any backup apps to restore our applications, instead we re-downloaded them from the Google Play Store.
This has been a very worthwhile update in our view. Yes, there are still going to be a few bugs here and there that Sony Mobile will no doubt rectify in future updates. The Album and Walkman apps are a particular highlight for us, but the vast number of smaller changes makes the Xperia S almost seem like a new phone now that it is running ICS.
Some may still view the Xperia S hardware as being behind the competition, however the ICS experience is not compromised by its specs in our view. It was a long wait for Xperia S users, but now we have the experience that Sony had always intended when it launched the handset and for that we are delighted.